Photo: Ales Krivec on Unsplash: Vintgar, Slovenia
The Radovna pooled itself and waited for her ablution. Still. Clear. Shattering in its beauty and perfection.
Everything she was not.
Hers was more the unfettered rush, cutting gorges, collecting all manner of debris, and lugging along tumbled things that poked their heads out of the milky froth of living.
There were no still ponds in her being.
She looked at the icicles suspended from rocks above the freezing water. They were guarding it.
From beings that did not deserve to be cleansed.
Like herself.
Hom and Boršt rose above the gorge, patient and unbending. The beech trees on the slopes, stripped bare for winter, rustled as they waited to witness her own naked skin.
Her eyes lifted to the bridge, though she expected no one on it. The area was closed to tourists in the winter. Only the locals came, alone, to seek absolution in the Radovna’s icy bowl.
Na'ama Yehuda 
This was wonderful, Na’ama…I hope she learns her own value.
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Thank you, Dale! I hope she does, too, and I hope that whatever that ritual is for her, it helps her feel more at peace with herself.
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Exactly.
She must learn to love herself.
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Amen, Sistah! 🙂
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😀
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😀
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That’s lovely. But it makes me realise the cold. Shivering. So atmospheric is your writing
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Thank you, Crispina! Go get a sweater? 🙂
The water looked so very cold in that photo, I could only imagine what it would be liked to dip a toe in them, let alone full immersion … brrrr
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Yea, just thinking of it… the power of the imagination, eh.
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🙂 Gotta love ‘magination!
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Yea. And to think, not everyone’s got it.
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Ah, I think everybody’s got some of it, but not everybody uses much of what they got … and not everyone’s got the same amount to begin with … 😉
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That’s for sure 🙂
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🙂 Me try be positif.
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🙂
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🙂
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Gorgeous language in this piece. Really excellent.
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Thank you, Josh! I am so pleased! There was so much atmosphere in that photo, that it spoke its own words. 🙂
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I love this ~ Hers was more the unfettered rush, cutting gorges, collecting all manner of debris, and lugging along tumbled things that poked their heads out of the milky froth of living.
The contrasts in your writing are splendid. Still. Clear. unfettered rush, cutting gorges. Yum
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Yay, Alicia! I am so grateful and gratified! 🙂 isn’t nature amazing in the analogies it provides? 🙂
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Wow, what amazing imagery and metaphor you have wrought here; it reads like poetry! And powerful emotionally as well. I can feel how corrupted she feels, how awful she sees her acts, that she requires such absolution.
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Thank you, Joy! I love this comment! I think you captured this exactly! The hope and the need and the worry and the marred self-perception — there are so many who walk around feeling damaged beyond forgiveness, when perhaps if they could see themselves as others do, they’d know themselves to be simply flawed humans, worthy of understanding and self-forgiveness, too.
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Well put, Na’ama. Asking for absolution from her gods won’t help if she can’t also learn to forgive and accept herself.
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Indeed. And I think that in matters of the soul, all forgiveness is self-forgiveness. …
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A very good story to go with an awesomely beautiful photo! Loved it!
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Thank you, Jellico! 🙂
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You’ve written a wonderful story, Na’ama. Your concept of immersion in the winter pool to win absolution is so plausible that I went researching in Google thinking it must be true!
Now I hope this comment will be accepted…if you see it, things are working again!
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Thank you, Penny! For this lovely comment (I’m sure some people someplace used immersion for absolution … as it already is used in many cultures for other forms of purification…). What a great comment!
Thank you, also, for persisting when the commenting thing didn’t work – thank you so much for letting me know through the ‘contact’ button, because it allowed me to become aware of the issue, and allowed WP to fix it. You’re a hero! 🙂
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